


more than anything

by jehans



Series: the world slows ‘til there’s nothing left [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bottom Bucky Barnes, Comfort Sex, Established Relationship, M/M, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Steve is reckless and Bucky is scared, Top Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:21:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23733757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehans/pseuds/jehans
Summary: “Okay,” Steve begins the moment he walks in the front door, “don’t be mad.”Bucky, who is not mad, and has no reason to be mad, narrows his eyes suspiciously and fully puts down his magazine. “What did you do?”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: the world slows ‘til there’s nothing left [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709524
Comments: 27
Kudos: 273





	more than anything

“Okay,” Steve begins the moment he walks in the front door, “don’t be mad.”

Bucky, who is not mad, and has no reason to be mad, narrows his eyes suspiciously and fully puts down his magazine. “What did you do?”

All in all, Bucky’s been having a good day so far. He had a half day at his job at the City Clerk’s office, he bought himself lunch at the deli on his way home as a special treat, and he’s been spending the rest of the afternoon sitting on the sofa in his undershirt with his suspenders pushed down and hanging over his hips, reading this week’s _Astounding Stories_ , his favorite science fiction pulp. It’s been a really nice afternoon.

And apparently, that’s all about to end.

Steve rolls his eyes at Bucky’s question-cum-accusation, but there’s an underlying nervousness that doesn’t leave his eyes — the way they’re just a little too wide, the blue of them just a little too pale. Bucky has seen that look on Steve’s face approximately five hundred thousand times since they met when they were tots. It’s the face he makes when he knows he’s done something bad. And rolling his eyes doesn’t make that expression go away.

“I didn’t _do_ anything,” Steve says defensively, as he walks behind the sofa where Bucky can’t watch him, toward the kitchen.

“Who did you hit?” Bucky presses, taking a shot, as he turns over his shoulder to try to catch whatever tell Steve is going to exhibit when he lies to Bucky.

But Steve sighs the kind of sigh that sounds more like a groan, and pokes his head out of the kitchen to say, “I didn’t hit anyone,” and fine, that’s the truth.

So Bucky sighs, too, albeit internally and stands up, following Steve into the kitchen. He leans back against the counter, watching Steve wash his hands at the sink. Bucky waits for Steve to be done and turn around, long, delicate fingers pulling at his tie to loosen it.

Bucky has to pull his eyes away from those fingers because he still needs to find out why he’s about to get mad, and if he keeps watching those fingers, he _will_ get distracted.

“What did you do?” Bucky asks again, calmly.

“I said don’t be mad,” Steve says instead of answering.

Bucky nods. “And yet you haven’t said what I shouldn’t be mad _about_ ,” he points out.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Steve wheedles, taking a step toward Bucky and reaching out to hook his fingers into Bucky’s waistband. Bucky keeps leaning, arms crossed over his chest, pretending not to be moved. “Don’t be sore, it’s not that big a deal.”

“Then what is it?” Bucky asks, the picture of patience on the outside, but starting to internally lose it with the way Steve’s fingers have found their way under the lip of his shorts, the way Steve’s thumbs are brushing over the fabric of his slacks. “Steve. Tell me.”

Steve takes a slow breath. “We can’t go back to Rita’s.”

“ _What?_ ” Bucky snaps. He really _likes_ Rita’s. They do the best black and white frosted milkshakes in the neighborhood. “Steve, what did you _do?_ I _like_ Rita’s!”

“I know you do, I know,” Steve is already saying before Bucky is even finished talking. “I know, I’m sorry, sweetheart, I really am. I didn’t mean to, I—”

“You didn’t mean to _what_ , Steve?”

“I— Do you remember that moron who manages the place?” Steve asks. “Jerry Manke?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says slowly, still glowering. Jerry Manke _is_ a moron. He was in Bucky’s year at school and he was one of those kids that would stand around with other guys and talk mean shit about girls he knew. Fuck Jerry Manke.

“Okay, yes,” Steve continues, excited that Bucky has shown any sign at all of going along with this, which means Bucky’s still doing a decent job of acting like Steve’s continued closeness isn’t making him dizzy with wanting _more._ “So, Jerry Manke was at the grocery store today, and when I got off of my shift, he was outside talking to a woman who was _clearly_ not interested. She seemed uncomfortable, but he wouldn’t leave her alone, so I told him to back off.”

Fuck. This is gonna be one of those stories where Steve put himself in harm’s way, and Bucky can’t even be truly angry with him because he did it in someone else’s defense.

“Well,” Steve keeps going, not noticing the way Bucky is softening, “Jerry didn’t like that, so he tells me to mind my own business, so I told him to shove it up his ass.”

“Steve!”

“I know, I know, I swore in front of a lady, I _know._ But she smiled at me, Buck, and as she hurried away, she thanked me.”

That makes sense. Steve is gorgeous and heroic and lovely and when he swears in front of women it’s usually because he’s defending them, of _course_ she thanked him. Bucky’s frown deepens.

“Anyway, Jerry got mad and he woulda hit me, but Mr. Winnick walked out right then because he saw me arguing with someone out the window, and he always comes out when he sees me arguing with someone because he thinks I’m gonna get in a fight.”

Steve rolls his eyes like this is obviously ridiculous, but Bucky thinks Mr. Winnick, Steve’s boss at the grocer, must be a smart and wonderful man.

“So,” Steve finally wraps up his story, “instead of hitting me, Jerry just said that if we ever go back to Rita’s, he’ll break my arms.”

 _I’ll kill him_ , Bucky immediately thinks, but he doesn’t say it out loud. He never says those thoughts out loud because it terrifies him how true they really are. He’s long since decided that it won’t be the way he feels for Steve that damns him — it can’t be. Steve is pure goodness and light, and loving him is the most wholly righteous thing Bucky has ever done. The way he loves Steve, and the way Steve loves him, those things are sacred. Sanctified. No, it will be this. It will be the way Bucky’s mind goes instantly to violence — to _hurting_ — whenever Steve is at risk. It’ll be the way he knows, beyond anything even close to a doubt, that he would murder someone with his own hands without thinking twice if that person were a real threat to Steve’s wellbeing. _That’s_ what will be his undoing.

“You can’t go picking fights like this all the time, Steve,” Bucky argues with very little real vehemence. “Jerry Manke is a moron, but he’s three times your size!”

“He was harassing that woman!” Steve shoots back.

“But the worst part is that you’re not even _going to_ avoid Rita’s!” Bucky cries, pressing his hands against his eyes. “You’re such an idiot, Steve, Christ!”

“Hey, I’m gettin’ yelled at for something I didn’t even _do_ yet?” Steve demands, taking his fingers out of Bucky’s waistband and stepping backward, angry.

“Well, are you?” Bucky asks wildly.

Steve hesitates, which is itself an answer. But when Bucky groans and pushes up off the counter to storm away in a huff, Steve says, “I didn’t do anything _wrong_ , Buck!” and he’s _right_ , and Bucky _hates_ that.

Because he doesn’t get mad at Steve for doing shit like this just because Steve is being an idiot. He gets mad because he doesn’t know how to break down and tell Steve that he’s _scared_. That Steve is his entire fucking world, that he doesn’t know how to live a life that Steve Rogers doesn’t totally and unrelentingly occupy, that he’s already so afraid he’s going to have to learn, someday, what the world looks like without Steve’s light, and he can’t _stand_ the thought that something could snuff him out even sooner. He’s absolutely terrified all of the time, and he doesn’t know how to just _tell_ Steve that, so he gets mad.

But Steve _didn’t_ do anything wrong. He’s powerful and unbreakable, but his body is not, and whether or not Bucky is frightened by that, Steve’s moral righteousness is true.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky groans, and he means it to come out sounding angry, but it doesn’t. It just sounds pleading, and broken, and so, so scared. And the veneer Bucky tries so hard to hide behind is shattered.

Steve’s face falls from defensive anger into wide-open surprise. For a moment, he sees straight into Bucky’s heart, and the recognition of what he sees there floods his eyes with green.

Bucky wants to backtrack — to shout, to throw up anger like smoke and disappear behind it, but he can’t. Because Steve moves forward the half-step it takes to crash their bodies together and kisses Bucky with every ounce of unyielding fight his small body contains.

Bucky’s resolve crashes down around him as his hands grip the back of Steve’s jacket, not yet discarded from his shift. He relinquishes his mask of anger and lets Steve kiss him hard, hands clasped around the back of his neck, grasping his face as Steve’s tongue pushes into his mouth.

“It’s okay, baby,” Steve whispers against Bucky’s lips between searing kisses, “I’m okay, I’m right here.”

He knows, now, that _this_ is what Bucky needs. Not excuses, not explanations, just reassurance. Just a reminder that he’s not losing Steve, not now.

Not yet.

Steve’s mouth breaks from Bucky’s to start planting wet kisses like flowers along his jaw, down his neck. There’s no finesse, not right now, just pressing. Just _feeling_. Just soft lips frantically dragging across trembling skin. Bucky is desperate for Steve, always, and Steve urgently gives himself to Bucky now, because he knows.

Bucky pushes at Steve’s jacket and Steve shrugs it off his shoulders, letting it fall to the kitchen floor as he rucks Bucky’s undershirt up to run delicate hands over his stomach and chest, up to his shoulders, until he’s pulling the shirt off over Bucky’s head entirely.

They’ve done this before, the frantic undressing, the inelegant, hungry sex, but not quite like this. Not because Bucky is always, every hour of every day, fucking _terrified_ that Steve’s small, frail body will, one of these days, fail him. Not because Steve is so eager to show Bucky how alive he really is.

Steve starts pushing Bucky backwards out of the kitchen, still locked with him in hurried, passionate kisses. Bucky struggles to undo the buttons on Steve’s shirt as he guides him through the main room and around the corner into their bedroom.

Bucky’s back hits the mattress of the bed they share, and in the time it takes him to scoot up onto the bed fully, Steve finishes unbuttoning his own shirt and sheds the garment, slipping out of his suspenders in the process. He climbs up over Bucky, settling between his legs, and ducks down to press heated kisses to his chest and down his stomach, only lifting his head when Bucky yanks at his undershirt to get it off.

“You want me to show you, sweetheart?” Steve asks while his fingers pop open Bucky’s fly, all pure sincerity, open and earnest. “Want to feel how I’m all right? I love you, baby, you know I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

Bucky hears the low, yearning whine that escapes his lips. He can’t quite manage to form words yet, just reaches out and hopes Steve can read his mind.

And Steve can, of course he can, because he climbs back up over Bucky and lies on top of him, kissing him deeply again.

Bucky will never have had enough of Steve’s mouth. He knows this, knows that centuries could pass, millennia, eons, and it will never have been enough. It will only ever be Steve for him. There has never been anyone else, and there never will be. And if Steve ever does go away because of sickness or violence or because he just doesn’t want Bucky to be the only one anymore, Bucky can’t ever be sure he won’t just cease to exist. He doesn’t remember a life before Steve. He can’t imagine one after.

But Steve is murmuring things to him in-between the pressing of their lips. He’s speaking of years and years to come that they’ll spend together, just like this. He’s telling Bucky that he won’t go, he’ll always be here. Mostly, though, he’s saying, “ _I love you._ ” Over and over, like a promise.

After a while, after he’s regained the ability to speak, Bucky promises it, too.

Steve manages to get the rest of their clothes off once Bucky has calmed down enough to form words again, and when they’re pressed to each other, skin to skin, he wraps his long, delicate fingers around Bucky’s length and slowly begins to stroke.

Bucky arches into Steve’s hand, his head tilting back into their pillows, and Steve’s rhythm speeds up.

“What do you need, sweetheart?” Steve asks sweetly, holding himself up over Bucky’s body with his free hand. “What do you need me to do?”

Bucky moans. “Fuck me,” he gasps through the way Steve is thumbing over the head of his cock every time his hand moves over him. “Please, honey, please.”

“God, you’re so sweet when I’ve got you like this,” Steve marvels softly, smiling down at Bucky. “All day long you’re up my ass about every little thing, but you fall right into ‘please’ and ‘honey’ the second I’m close to getting up yours.”

“Fuck...you...,” Bucky pants without conviction. It’s not untrue. Steve is a reckless asshole who Bucky loves unconditionally and wholeheartedly, and when Steve is quietly undoing him in their bed, loving on him openly and indulgently the way Bucky doesn’t always let him, it becomes difficult to keep pretending that Bucky wouldn’t go to the ends of the earth for any of Steve’s whims.

But mostly, what makes him so honeyed in these moments is the way _Steve_ transforms. When he climbs on top of Bucky, all of Steve’s usual, too-close-to-the-surface anger drains out of his eyes, clearing away into pure blue skies of utter adoration. It’s an honesty that Bucky cracks under, breaking open the clay of mundanity and allowing him to shine brightly under Steve’s hands.

Steve continues to murmur words dripping with sweetness into his skin as he opens Bucky with his long fingers. Steve is fluent in the language of Bucky’s body, attuned to every breath, every movement. He’s so well familiar with every part of Bucky that it’s as though he can hear Bucky’s thoughts, can predict his next reactions. He’s got Bucky on the brink, on the edge, even before Steve pushes his cock inside him. And by then Bucky is whimpering, _please, please, honey, please_ , over and over again until Steve fucks the orgasm out of him, fucks him through the trembling and the panting and the high moans that escape Bucky’s lips and sound more like sobs.

After Steve’s hips still against the curve of Bucky’s ass, his lips parted and eyes squeezed shut, and after he pulls out and cleans the stickiness off of them both, Steve climbs back into bed, pulling Bucky into his arms and kissing his forehead. Bucky buries his face in the salt of Steve’s neck, breathing him in once, twice, three times. Steve keeps his lips pressed against Bucky’s forehead, one arm wrapped possessively around his shoulders, the other holding the back of his head and keeping him close. Keeping them sealed together, bound as one like they could stay this way forever.

They stay like this for long enough that Bucky’s breathing has evened out, the tenseness in his grip relaxed. And just before he starts to fall asleep, Steve softly says, “I won’t go back to Rita’s.”

Bucky finally pulls his face out of the crook of Steve’s neck to look up into the ocean of his eyes. “You won’t?”

Steve has never offered something like this before. He’s never, not once, willingly backed down from a fight. And Bucky knows that Steve sees this situation with Jerry Manke as an ongoing fight. Jerry threatened him. Steve doesn’t generally appreciate that kind of behavior.

But Steve nods, honesty in his eyes. “I won’t go to Rita’s, and I won’t go after Jerry. I promise.”

Bucky’s eyebrows pull together in confusion. “Why?”

Steve laughs at that, short and loud. “Because, asshole,” he tells Bucky, squeezing him with all the strength his body will allow, “I love you.”

The unspoken hangs between them. That Bucky is scared. That he is always scared. And that now, Steve knows.

But instead of leveraging it against him or rolling his eyes or laughing at him, Steve gives Bucky grace. Nothing has _ever_ convinced Steve to stop fighting before.

Bucky’s arms tighten around Steve’s small, frail body and he buries his face back into Steve’s skin. He knows this is just one fight, that Steve will never stop fighting for good, that as long as Steve lives, he will fight. He knows that as long as Steve fights, he will be afraid. But he also knows, without a doubt, that Steve’s fight is part of what Bucky loves so deeply about him. And Bucky loves him _so_ deeply.

Bucky barely hears _himself_ speak, but Steve does. Bucky knows, because after he breathes out six too-honest words, Steve pulls away from him just enough to duck down and kiss Bucky. Hard enough to bruise, hard enough that Bucky can’t mistake the meaning behind it, the unvoiced echoing back of his own six words.

“I love you more than anything.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave me a comment if you feel like it! It’s week who-the-fuck-knows of quarantine and I need external validation! ✌🏻
> 
> @apblaidd


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